Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain

Friday, April 2, 2010

A New Tax For Puerto Peñasco!

-by El Gitano Peñasco, "The Peñasco Gypsy"
Some believe that PP is beginning to see the effects of the failed US ‘War On Drugs’ policies and the subsequent actions by the ‘drug-lords’ spilling over into this wonderful community. I personally believe that it could get downright ugly here as the cartels seek new entry and exit ports for their ‘stuff’.

But what is really upsetting is that every time I watch a news report on the ‘tube’ or read something in a gringo Newspaper, or hear it on the radio (or read it online) they ALWAYS basically imply, by the manner and ‘content’ in which they report, that it is a ‘Mexico’ problem when the 100% truth is that nothing could be further from reality than that!

When the US Media reports on the ‘War On Drugs’, or, worse, when those silly ‘Cop’ type TV shows air, they are always showing some down-and-out type trying to score a (e.g.) $20 bag of pot, or a couple of joints, etc. and after the ‘Cops’ seize the dreaded ‘drug-users’ and confiscate the drugs they often proclaim that ‘…another bad guy is off the street…’

What you’ll never see reported though is who the ‘bulk’ of drug users really are. The fact of the matter is that ‘they’ include (just in the USA) millions and millions of middle to upper class hard working tax paying citizens, including some incredibly wealthy high profile personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, who admitted that he had been illegally purchasing prescription drugs such as oxycodone and hydrocodone…

Now, I’m not picking on Rush; the list of movie stars, TV personalities, radio hosts and politicians, etc. who’ve used (and many have been ‘busted’) various drugs (legal and/or otherwise) would require reading this week’s rant until the second coming, so to speak.

Who I am picking on are all the millions of ‘silent’ US citizens who purchase and use the lion’s share of drugs (legal and/or illegal) and then remain absolutely silent, refusing to acknowledge that it is their demand and use of the drugs that is directly responsible for the bulk of lives lost in Mexico, and indeed much of the world!

I personally know, for example, (and I’m sure some of you do, too) a number of government (State) employees who hold rather important and respectable positions in divisions such as an Attorney General’s Office, a Tax office, etc. who’ve been ‘buying’ and ‘using’ (mostly pot) on a daily basis throughout their entire careers (decades!)…

I, like many of you, also know countless USA business owners who ‘partake’ in such extracurricular ‘activities’, yet they, too, turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the continued killings (that often include innocent children, etc.) that, again, are a direct result of ‘their’ demands and usage and the failed US ‘War On Drugs’ campaign.

On top of that, making matters worse, the Mexican and US prisons (and other countries' as well) are overflowing from what can best be described as ‘small-time users’; those people’s lives will forever be altered as they’ll have a criminal record that will surely haunt them all the way to hell!

So I suggest that Puerto Peñasco city leaders implement a Hypocritical Tax as quickly as millions of Phoenicians are scoring ‘dime-bags’ back ‘home’ (24/7/365). City Leaders should set up a Check-Point, stop all inbound traffic and begin charging that tax for each visit (and each person, regardless of age).

It would work like this: “Buenos Días Amigos…’

And oh, by the way, for all you booze guzzlers visiting our community who would ‘never’ use any ‘drugs’, including you ‘teetotalers’ who only use alcohol for medicinal purposes, you’ll be charged a ‘Doble' tax for your hypocrisy.